Passage 1 Ethnomusicologist Dr. Maria Santos documented traditional healing songs among indigenous communities in the Amazon region during the 1990s....
GMAT Craft and Structure : (Structure) Questions
Passage 1
Ethnomusicologist Dr. Maria Santos documented traditional healing songs among indigenous communities in the Amazon region during the 1990s. Her methodology focused on recording performances in their original ceremonial contexts, believing that the spiritual and communal environment was essential to understanding the music's cultural function. Santos argued that removing these songs from their traditional settings would fundamentally alter their meaning and significance.
Passage 2
Building on Santos's foundational work, contemporary researchers have expanded documentation efforts to include detailed interviews with song keepers about the historical origins and symbolic meanings of specific musical elements. This additional layer of cultural context has revealed that the healing songs contain references to ancestral migration patterns and seasonal ecological changes that weren't apparent from performance recordings alone. These discoveries have validated Santos's emphasis on cultural context while demonstrating that comprehensive understanding requires multiple documentation approaches working together.
Based on the passages, how would the contemporary researchers discussed in Passage 2 most likely characterize Santos's methodology, as described in Passage 1?
By arguing that the methodology relies too heavily on ceremonial contexts
By endorsing the methodology's emphasis on cultural context while showing how additional approaches can deepen understanding
By cautioning that the methodology overlooks the importance of historical documentation
By praising the methodology for its comprehensive approach to symbolic meanings
Step 1: Decode and Map the Passage
Part A: Passage Analysis Table
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
|---|---|
| Passage 1: | |
| "Ethnomusicologist Dr. Maria Santos documented traditional healing songs among indigenous communities in the Amazon region during the 1990s." |
|
| "Her methodology focused on recording performances in their original ceremonial contexts, believing that the spiritual and communal environment was essential to understanding the music's cultural function." |
|
| "Santos argued that removing these songs from their traditional settings would fundamentally alter their meaning and significance." |
|
| Passage 2: | |
| "Building on Santos's foundational work, contemporary researchers have expanded documentation efforts to include detailed interviews with song keepers about the historical origins and symbolic meanings of specific musical elements." |
|
| "This additional layer of cultural context has revealed that the healing songs contain references to ancestral migration patterns and seasonal ecological changes that weren't apparent from performance recordings alone." |
|
| "These discoveries have validated Santos's emphasis on cultural context while demonstrating that comprehensive understanding requires multiple documentation approaches working together." |
|
Part B: Passage Architecture & Core Elements
Main Point: Contemporary researchers validate Santos's emphasis on cultural context while demonstrating that combining multiple documentation methods provides even deeper understanding of traditional healing songs.
Argument Flow: Passage 1 establishes Santos's context-focused methodology and her argument that ceremonial settings are essential for understanding. Passage 2 shows how contemporary researchers built on this foundation by adding interview-based documentation, which both confirmed Santos's emphasis on cultural context and revealed additional layers of meaning that recordings alone couldn't capture.
Step 2: Interpret the Question Precisely
This is a fill-in-the-blank question asking us to choose the best logical connector. The answer must create the right relationship between what comes before and after the blank.
Step 3: Prethink the Answer
- The key relationship here is that Passage 2 explicitly states the contemporary researchers "validated Santos's emphasis on cultural context"
- This means they agree with her core approach
- However, they also discovered that their additional methods (interviews) revealed things "that weren't apparent from performance recordings alone"
- They concluded that "comprehensive understanding requires multiple documentation approaches working together"
- So the contemporary researchers would likely characterize Santos's methodology as fundamentally sound in its emphasis on cultural context, but also as something that can be enhanced and deepened through additional approaches
- They're not criticizing her work - they're building on it and showing how it can be expanded
By arguing that the methodology relies too heavily on ceremonial contexts
✗ Incorrect
- This suggests the researchers think Santos relied "too heavily" on ceremonial contexts
- Passage 2 actually validates Santos's emphasis on cultural context, not criticizes it
By endorsing the methodology's emphasis on cultural context while showing how additional approaches can deepen understanding
✓ Correct
- This perfectly matches what Passage 2 states: researchers validated Santos's cultural context emphasis
- Also captures that they showed "additional approaches can deepen understanding" - exactly what their interview method accomplished
By cautioning that the methodology overlooks the importance of historical documentation
✗ Incorrect
- This suggests the researchers are cautioning that Santos overlooked historical documentation
- But Passage 2 shows researchers building positively on her work, not cautioning about oversights
By praising the methodology for its comprehensive approach to symbolic meanings
✗ Incorrect
- Says researchers praise Santos for comprehensive approach to symbolic meanings
- But Passage 2 shows that symbolic meanings were revealed through the new interview approach, not Santos's original methodology